“ This use of the law to interfere with democratic freedoms is a deeply worrying tendency - witness the 2005 Serious and Organized Crimes Act preventing protests around Parliament and Downing Street, and the decision last week to ban the march in Central London planned by the Stop the War Coalition.”

“This is gross violation of free speech, and a most disgraceful thing that the UCU activists concerned have done. It reflects very badly on the union as a whole, whether or not the action has official sanction. As a trades unionist I have made a formal complaint to the Trades Union Congress and UCU, and urge you to do likewise.

One wonders how they would respond to a negative review on a paper or proposal. It's not peer review! it's libel. Sue the editor

In any respect, if that link was made even "innocently" by a right-of-centre faculty member, he or she would be over a very serious barrel right now. Due process and basic fairness would demand the same of Delich. This is the kind of thing that makes conservative or even fair neutral watchdog groups drool and for very good reason.

And the UCU's priory here is not to confront it, or even to cover it up -- since it's already out of the bag. But rather to retaliate (or watch their members retaliate) against people who have brought up very serious questions as to the ethics and competence of their most "aware" and "activist" members.

Inna posted on August 27, 2008 at 04:46:15 AM

HP is now down for me as well--after a full day of uninterrupted service. Further the message is quite different from when HP goes down (fr some reason it tends to go down towards the end of the month for me). So, for the HP community that wants to comment--this is not a "normal" outage and now it looks like it hit over the pond as well. Go to: http://jennadelich.blogspot.com/ to visit with friends.

Sincerely,

Inna

S.O.Muffin posted on August 27, 2008 at 09:02:23 AM

Bill is spot on. Had, say, a boycott opponent published a link to conspiracy-theory drivel on an explicitly racist, anti-Muslim website (run by a former KKK leader and a neo-Nazi), we would have heard no end of it. And rightly so!

But once a boycotter links to an anti-Semitic conspiracy-theory drivel on an explicitly anti-Semitic (and anti-Black) website (run by a former KKK leader and a neo-Nazi), then the reaction of the boycott machine is to silence those who (quite rightly) are highlighting it. They are maliciously interfering with free speech, but then what can you expect from Stalinists? They cannot send their opponents for "re-education", so at least they can use the ridiculous British anti-label laws to intimidate ISPs.

There is one, and only one, effective reaction to this. They wanted to prevent the few hundreds of HP readers from reading about it? Take care that the story of UCU boycotters and David Duke reaches millions. Publish it on blogs (and not just in UK). Try to get it into press (and not just in UK). Make them pay!!!

Having sacrificed the struggle against antisemitism on the altar of Fighting Evil Zionism, now the useful idiots reach the next stage in the trajectory - not simply bystanders for antisemites, but selective collaborators "when the facts speak for themselves".

They used to spout that Zionists collaborate with antisemites. Ha! Can't wait for that accusation to arise again. Why don't they also advise people to buy the David Duke book that's advertised alongside the article, "Jewish Supremacism". They could always just tippex out the word Jew and replace it with Zionist, then it would be anti-racist wouldn't it?

Nevertheless, I wouldn't say linkning to the KKK-lite David Duke site is any more stupid than what we've previously seen. We've known since the New Statesman cover fiasco (golden star of david pierces union jack) that the left's smug arrogance and ignorance re antisemitism knows no boundaries. Similarly with the (non) reaction to Tam Dalyell's Jewish cabal.

The useful idiots could have apologised. Anyone seen any sign of that? An apology for linking to a KKK-lite website? No, just like New Statesman and the rest. (Note - NS did not apologise when initially approached by Jewish communal reps, and only apologised when their offices were 'occupied' by self proclaimed Jewish anti-Zionists.)

It is no surprise that those who wish to silence other voices through an academic boycott also wish to remove freedom of speech from those who criticise them. The scandal is the presence of fascists in higher education. This story demonstrates that they are fascists because they are unable to distinguish their own opinions from those of fascists, and because they act like fascists in their approach to open discourse.

it seems that a few posters there are very confused about the nature of David Duke's web sites and the issues, sadly I haven't got the wits or energy to explain it to them, but if one or 2 of you could, that would help, thanks.

Brian Goldfarb posted on September 09, 2008 at 11:52:05 AM

Unfortunately, LL but not yet B, truth is _not_ an absolute defence in libel cases: a statement in England & Wales may be true, but may still lose a libel case for the defendant. This is why Harry's Place ISP weaselled out of continue to provide for Harry's Place. In the US, having established that the statement was true, it would have told the complainant to take a running jump.